Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Tommy Hilfiger Flipping Out at The Plaza

SELLER: Tommy HilfigerLOCATION: 768 Fifth Avenue, New York, NYPRICE: $50,000,000 ($11,340/month taxes and maintenance)SIZE: 6,000 square feet (approx.), 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathroomsDESCRIPTION: ...The eight room duplex on the 18th and 19th floors has incredible views and light. It is delivered unfinished and can be finished to the buyer's specifications...It contains the "Dome" which is one of the most recognizable architectural features of the iconic Plaza as well as other interesting architectural details. All this and a private terrace overlooking Central Park.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This morning Your Mama discussed the $60,000,000 PickFair listing in Beverly Hills, so let's stick with the big money theme and mosey on over to Manhattan this afternoon and have a little look-see at the unfinished corner penthouse unit at The Plaza being flipped by retail fashion tycoon Tommy Hilfiger for a blistering $50,000,000.

All the children surely already know that the legendary Plaza Hotel–an establishment where Your Mama's luxe-luvin' mama used to enjoy lunching when she visited the Big Apple–has been converted into an uber high end condominium development where that chain smoking strip of leather that is DonatellaVersace designed the model units which enticed boo-coo bucks buyers to drop butt loads of money on high priced pee-ed-a-tears with massive monthly fees and access to dee-luxe 5-star hotel services including (but not limited to) maid and concierge service, valet parking, limousine service, nanny and pet care services, and fresh flower delivery.

Some of the deep pocketed buyers who will be swaddled and coddled in ornate moldings, walnut bordered herringbone par-kay floors, Calacatta marble and intricate mosaic tile accents include tanlicious lesbian money guru SuzeOrman, boxing glove baron Jerry Kokes, a whole bunch of finance industry figures Your Mama has never heard of as well as a number of Latin American magnates whose names ring no bells of familiarity in our booze addled brain. Natch, a good number of really rich Russians have also parked rafts of rubles at The Plaza including a little known Russian hedge hog named Andrei Vavilov who reportedly went to contract to purchase a $53,500,000 triplex penthouse but changed his damn mind and is now spitting, foot stomping and suing mad because he wants his ten-plus million dollar deposit back.

But, as usual, we digress. Records indicate that Mister Wildly Rich Hilfiger the House Flipper only closed on his two-unit doo-plex in July of 2008 for what appears to be $25,048,673, a figure our bejeweled abacus tells us means the toothy 50-something year old apparel baron hopes to earn himself a twenty-plus million dollar profit for flipping the unfinished penthouse after just two months of actual ownership. Now that children, takes some seriously steely real estate testiculas, don't it?

Although it appears that Mister Hilfiger went ahead and combined his two units via a curving staircase and that he also went through the bother of erecting what Braden Keil at the New York Post so succinctly called "essential walls," the doo-plex is being offered as ree-donkulously expensive raw space since neither Mister Hilfiger nor his team of nice gay decorators went so far as to finish the approximately 6,000 square foot space with acres of baby booty soft cashmere applied to the walls or to install aged persimmon dyed goat skin on the powder room floor.

So what does fifty million smackers buy at The Plaza if not rare and unexpected finishes such as limestone quarried at an exorbitant cost and mortal danger from the bottom of the Amnokgang River? As far as Your Mama can tell it buys a small corner of the 18th floor that includes a nearly 500 square foot living room that faces Fifth Avenue but does not feature a fireplace and a claustrophobically windowless dining room that leads to a small and sexy circular room beneath the famous dome. On the park side of the 18th floor, we find a decent sized but wee-windowed room where a gore-may kitchen with all the a-coo-tra-mah will (hopefully) be installed, a library with a stellar view of Central Park and another windowless room marked as a home office on the floor plan.

Upstairs, on the 19th floor, three family bedrooms are planned, two with private poopers and a third with a terlit located down the hall. The children will note that all the bathrooms are windowless creating a potentially disgusting olfactory sitch-u-ay-shun if artificial ventilation is not powerfully top notch. A small, windowless and seemingly useless sitting room acts as a too-wide hallway leading to the laundry room. We imagine this is where the domestic staff were meant to keep their purses and eat their meager meals. The reasonably sized but nearly windowless master bedroom includes two walk in closets/dressing rooms, a windowless bathroom and a small terrace located behind the dome that hangs over Central Park. If anyone were to ask Your Mama, and of course no one will, we'd try to figure a way to move that long narrow dressing room to the south wall of the master suite in order to give the bedroom an actual view of the park and better access to the terrace without having to pad down an otherwise useless L-shaped hallway.

Listen children, we understand (and hope) that a new owner may choose to tweak and re-work the layout, but for fifty million clams, Your Mama wants to be able to entertain guests on the modestly sized terrace without having to drag them through the master bedroom where they might succumb to an uncontrollable urge to peep into our night stands when we're not watching them like a mommy hawk watching babies in her nest.

This is not the first time that the real estate fickle Mister Hilfiger has flipped a high priced property very quickly after purchasing. After renting it for a truck load of cash to Moneybags Mariah Cary in August of 2007, Mister Hilfiger made bank when recently sold an ocean front house in East Hampton with a Bali inspired day-core that he'd bought a just year earlier. The high end house flipper also recently put his just completed (approx.) 20,000 square foot mansion in the super swank Greenwich, CT back country on the market with an asking price of $24,900,000 (significantly reduced from its original asking price of $27,900,000).

It remains to be seen whether Mister Hilfiger will get anywhere near fifty million bucks for his unfinished doo-plex, but like the PickFair listing, the price guarantees a plethora of publicity and heaps breathless coverage by all the real estate gossips. But if we had to bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly on the outcome, we'd say that given Mister Hilfiger's history making money flipping mansions, he will come out with many millions more than the hundreds of millions rich man already has.

28 comments:

Anonymous
said...

With all the money in the world with this condo, I would have made the living room into two stories, reloacted the staircase for better access to the second floor and terrace. The Dining room/Dome room would be the library. The Library would be the Dining room. And the 3 bedrooms up stairs would become just 2. Master and Guest. (Hey! I'm gay! I live alone! Thank God I'll never have children!) Of course I live in rural Missouri and rent a duplex... So what do I know? -Jeff_MO

I agree with 4:58 the floor plan you explained is much better than what is there. I realize this is The Plaza and is sort of a NYC landmark but 50 million thats a little much. Im sure their is something bigger and better priced around there. The maintenance fees are very low im surprised!

Million Dollar Listing........Chad's mother is really scary to look at. Now I know where the hairdo, the mouthful of porcelain veneers and the hypersincere speaking voice came from.......at least he hasn't had the overdone rhinoplasty yet. The series is now over and I will miss watching these bizarre young men pursuing the big fishes. Josh Flagg in NYC with granny was especially entertaining.....he did everything but slip her the tongue.

I dont get the 6000 sqft. In europe you get the net space and multiply with 1.25 and then you have your space. So in reality you get for example 2000 sqft and officially it is 2500 sqft. Here i count roughly 3000 sqft. So in the US you multiply it with 2 ? Thanks

Well children I have a funny and true story about that dome, that flagpole and almost falling to my death from the roof of the then Ivana Trump run Plaza hotel circa 1990. At the time I was a freelance fashion stylist and one of my most fun jobs was climbing to the top of tall buildings and monuments with the legendary French designer and photographer Thierry Mugler. As he was a friend of Ivana he had permission to shoot on the roof of the Plaza but I don't think they wanted us on top of the dome! My job was to hold the model who was wearing a sequined cat suit and high heels while climbing the flag pole. So that my hand would not show in the shot I held her up with the palms of my hand on the soles of her high heels, at one point she slid very fast down the pole and I lost my grip and fell against the railing with my face looking down at 5th Ave! At the time it was one of the scariest things that ever happened to me!

Since it's only "essential walls" that have been put in place, those that aren't structural can go. The shell offers enough nooks and crannies that with a complete re-layout (and a nice gay decorator or two), this could be a mega-stunning pied de terré. I'd like to swap the kitchen into the dining room space with the dome as a breakfast nook, carve up the existing living room for library & dining space, combine the vacated kitchen, library, foyer & office (relocating the power room in the process) into a grand living area; then I'd shift the entry to the current living room alcove and make the crapper-less bedroom upstairs the home office, moving a few doors, etc. to make it ensuite with the much reconfigured master (I like Mama's plan). But hey, that's just me and I'm a little short on the down payment at the moment……

Add on the services (for a very pricey $11K+ a month; but at $50M I'm sure that's not a concern), the exceptional location ––– overlooking Central Park, Grand Army Plaza & fountain, and a nearby entrance to the park with the Wolman Rink, Zoo and Pond just steps away, and I'm starting to feel the love.

Um, depending on your point of view, that would have been powder room.

Bentley, I agree; with that space turned into the dining room/library, I'd open up the wall of the crapper-less bedroom at the top of the stairs to create a loft-like space of the home office overlooking the library.

So Chic Darling, said..."So that my hand would not show in the shot I held her up with the palms of my hand on the soles of her high heels, at one point she slid very fast down the pole and I lost my grip and fell against the railing with my face looking down at 5th Ave!" Bien sur, I love SCD. But I must say, her memory is a bit off. Just a wee, little, itty bit. OFF. Her hands were not on my high heels. They were on my Vivian Westwood Cotswald Green support cup. All tooled leather!This was worn on the outside, very Madonna-esque. As for the moment I slid down "the pole" very fast, it was all courtesy of SCD's inexplicably sweaty palms. Although, the DA did drop the charges, to this day I think she deliberately let me go! And with God as my witness, she did not loose her grip (she's a strong old bird!). She was pushed by The Mug himself, when he became upset that our antics had fucked up his shot. The upside to this midtown tale: I met a hot NYFD boy who showed me how to put a fire out when we met up at The Male Room over on 8th Ave. Ahhhh, the 90s. Now, I've forgotten what I was going to say about Over-The-Hill-Figer and his glorious Plaza digs. But I'll save that digression for my future post after SCD rips me a new one for this one. PS- I really did like your version SCD!

I just find it so horribly tacky that someone has converted the plaza to condos...it's sacrilege...I hear what's left of the "hotel" portion has few or no rooms left with park views...growing up, going to to Plaza at Christmastime to the Oak Room with my father was a great tradition...somehow, I since the condo conversion has occurred, I don't think I'll ever be able to set foot in the old grande dame and feel the same way again...{sigh}

I stayed there two years ago while in New York for a meeting. I was so excited.....the Plaza, the history the ambiance! It was a total disappointment with poor service, overheated rooms and poor food. I understand that the place is an institution in New York but based upon my experience, with the poor hotel management.........it was the right move to turn it into condos and at least preserve the facade.

Hippie Canyon, how in the heck have you been? All seems right in the world when you post your clever stuff!

So_Chic...I got the willies and a horrible sinking feeling just reading it. For real? You slipped?

Like it matters, but, pashaw, this floorplan is making me loopy. No real outdoor space? It's all so window challenged. Somehow I think the library and dining room could be switched. Upstairs is a hot mess ... and what's up with that back hall...the peep-hole master bedroom window? That's plain silly. Then again, maybe perfect for a nocturnal. Enough already. There's always the Pierre penthouse, or wait for Brooke's place to resurface.

One doesn't pay $50MM and have people enter into one's cramped foyer and walk directly into one's kitchen. And storage on the public floor? Heavens. Also, you really aren't very private given the secondary bedrooms are directly on top of someone else's unit. One seriously cannot have a hot screaming monkey love in the maid's room with the kids' sports coach.

7:42, I can only guess kitchen has to be there because of plumbing. Hoping it has a door. Dislike position of that guest bath in foyer, along with a lot of other things. The finishes and extras would need to be dinamite to offset what this looks like on paper. IMHO